


And they were ROOMMATES

by localdemon



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Law School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Didn't Know They Were Dating, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Multi, Recreational Drug Use, Sharing a Bed, listen I really just took every trope I could think of and shoved it into one long rambly mess, this happened because my parents want me to go to law school lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:15:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23796745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/localdemon/pseuds/localdemon
Summary: “Such a drama queen, our Duckie,” Mark had grinned, tipsy and sincere and all sorts of other things that Donghyuck finds unbearable in the universal gay conundrum of falling in love with one’s best friend kind of way.Perhaps he needed to find a new roommate.[Alternatively: Maybe Donghyuck should retake theHow Kinky Are You?test, because masochistic tendencies don’t even begin to cover what willingly deciding to be Mark Lee’s roommate feels like.]
Relationships: Huang Renjun/Zhong Chenle, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee, Na Jaemin/Park Jisung
Comments: 20
Kudos: 288
Collections: Favorites





	And they were ROOMMATES

**Author's Note:**

> \- this has, like, almost nothing to do with law school but I swear I tried lol  
> \- yes I know the title is lame and unoriginal I'm sorry I couldn't think of anything better (this has always been the working title bc I started it that fucking long ago, at the height of the vine-references-are-peak-comedy era)  
> \- there is some mutually drunk sexual activities that happen towards the end but really no graphic detail so I decided to keep this as teen and up, but if there are concerns please contact me and I can change it !  
> \- update: when reading through this I realized my formatting did not translate well to ao3 and I changed some of it to hopefully make it a little less headache-inducing, so thanks for bearing with me !

Donghyuck has done a lot of bad things in his life, including but not limited to: the time he flirted his way out of being charged for shoplifting plastic sushi earrings from Forever 21, the time he spent an entire night convincing exchange student Wong Kunhang that he was a virgin to win a bet with Jaemin (it didn’t work. Jaemin played dirty, as always), and (probably his worst offense to date) cosigning a three-year lease with Mark Lee. The last nail in his coffin of bad decisions.

He wakes up two days into first semester with a boner and a death wish. As in, he wishes death on the clouds of watermelon body wash scented steam floating around their shared bathroom as he stumbles in, on the mirror not quite fogged up enough to hide the fact that it was recently scribbled on with what he’s pretty sure is the chemical equation for citric acid, on the roommate he’d chosen, for better or worse, rich or poor, sickness and health--you get the point--for the duration of law school.

The voice in his head that sounds terrifyingly like a weird Frankenstein’s monster amalgamation of Jaemin, his mother, and Renjun when he’s stoned, scolds him for letting his feelings-boner for Mark Lee trap him in the worst situation he’s ever gotten himself into: _domesticity_.

“You are losing it, Donghyuck,” he mutters to himself during his cold and lonely shower. He had already intended to take a cold shower to get rid of his non-feelings-boner for Mark, but the choice had been made for him regardless--Mark had used up what was probably their hot water for the week.

 _Three years_ , he thinks staring at his naked body in the graffitied mirror until it doesn’t look like a body anymore, _how bad can it be?_

He should probably stop giving himself almost-hopeful affirmations because Mark greets him with an apologetic smile when he walks into the disaster area that counts as their kitchen, Tax Law textbook haphazardly balanced against whatever was left of the carton of mango juice from their last late-night convenience store run, two unripe avocados that he’d snuck out of the sad little fruit basket on Jaemin’s kitchen island after Jaemin had passed out halfway through the Parasite bootleg they’d been streaming last night, and the ring light Donghyuck had bought junior year of college when he accidentally did molly at a frat party and decided to drop out and become an Instagram influencer.

There was a cup of coffee, exactly how he likes it in the spot with the pink folding lawn chair he’d claimed as his, and two mostly-unburnt chocolate chip eggos practically drenched in maple syrup, the special kind that Mark’s mom always made a point to send for Donghyuck’s birthday every year. His heart flutters painfully when he realizes that Mark must’ve remembered his drunken facetime rant two weeks ago on why blueberry eggos didn’t deserve to have MFDS approval.

The ugly, uncomfortable feeling that perhaps everyone in his immediate circle had been right after all, and he really hadn’t thought this through--well. He had known this whole living together bullshit had been a mistake the moment Mark had practically tackled him on the field after graduation in May, kissed his cheek, and said, eyebrows cutely perked up in that way that whether he knew it or not, always made Donghyuck’s stomach do a complicated series of acrobatics, and said, slightly out of breath: “The firm from Busan emailed me this morning! I’m gonna be interning at the beach!” He was grinning so hard that Donghyuck could feel it from over his shoulder where Mark had tucked his head into Donghyuck’s neck.

 _“I’m so happy for you,”_ he’d replied, a little dazed from immediately picturing Mark in the tiny neon pink swim trunks from the great 4th of July incident of 2018, trying not to let his twitching fingers stroke the soft hair on the nape of Mark’s neck. _“But you better not go fucking how-to-get-away-with-murder without me,”_ he’d teased, wondering if Mark could feel his heartbeat through the cheap fabric of their rented graduation gowns, _“I won’t bail you out.”_

It was a lie and they both knew it. Donghyuck made a big show of being the meanest to Mark (an attempt at hiding his feelings that was always met with mixed results) but he was always first in line to solve any of Mark’s problems. He couldn’t help it.

Somedays he wondered if Mark knew just what Donghyuck would do for him. The list of things he wouldn’t was growing shorter and shorter each year, and, as Yukhei had been all too willing to tell him, late nights after parties that never seemed to end as their last semester as college students had come to a close, when Donghyuck was trying unsuccessfully to get him sobered up over a shared order of sizzling hot samgyeopsal so Yukhei’s roommate Dejun wouldn’t kick him out for stumbling in drunk yet _again_ : “We’re all rooting for you guys. I don’t why you both can’t see what’s right in front of you.”

Donghyuck didn’t know why he ever let himself forget how wise Yukhei could get after a bottle and half of strawberry soju and whatever else was vibing around his system at 3 in the morning after a night of clubbing.

He never really found an answer to Yukhei’s question, and Yukhei never asked for one. Donghyuck just couldn’t bring himself to verbalize what he’d felt after so long. It seemed impossible there was a universe in which Mark loved him back when just the week before he’d been talking Mark through asking his latest bumble conquest on a date. His chest had ached painfully, as he’d helped the elder pick out an outfit and run a comb through his hair.

Donghyuck had known that his silence was unusual, and he spent most of the time hoping Mark would have mercy and not call him out on it, but the older had seemed caught up in his own little world too--probably worrying about the date, Donghyuck knew. But he couldn’t help but think, as he ushered Mark out the door, fixing his collar one last time and looking forward to how drunk he was about to get alone in his room, that Mark had looked, just a little bit, like he’d wanted Donghyuck to tell him to stay.

Mark hadn’t texted him after the date, and Donghyuck knew it was suspicious that he never asked, years of making whatever was Mark’s business his own catching up to him--but they’d never discussed it. He wondered, sometimes. If Mark knew. If Mark could sense the way Donghyuck’s breath hitches every time his shirt rides up, or when he walks in on another ill-advised hookup with Yukhei, or when Mark uses his subpar understanding of their oven to bake him brownies when it’s been a shit week.

It’s mornings when Donghyuck does his usual shitty job at not staring at how attractive Mark looks with his shirt still unbuttoned, revealing the baggy In-N-Out tee he’d snuck underneath it, or Tuesdays, the one day of the week Donghyuck gets home later than him, when he walks into their kitchen to find Mark sitting with his legs dangling over the counter, the heels of his cute, cherry-printed crew socks bumping the cabinets as he swings his feet and eats dry ramen straight out of the bag with the seasoning poured over it because he’s a heathen who reads too many College Life Hack Buzzfeed articles.

It’s the quiet, intimate, intoxicatingly domestic moments, when Donghyuck knows he royally, supremely, completely and utterly fucked up.

Because living with Mark Lee generally means falling even more helplessly in love with him, and, well, Donghyuck is guilty as charged. As the saying goes.

The first Friday night of his freshman year of college, Donghyuck had dragged his roommate at the time (Renjun, in fact) to the gayest club he could find within a sort-of reasonable vicinity of their school, and had, promptly (“accidentally”) abandoned him as soon as he caught sight of the cute blond kid who always sat third row in his Civ II class. That was his first mistake.

(His second mistake was going home with Jeno that night, but that’s another story.)

Anyway. He’d bumped into Mark and “accidentally” spilled the beer he was holding on himself (RIP sheer sparkly long sleeve maroon crop top, you were a real one), and Mark, freaked out and a little bit tipsy, had bought it, hook, line, and sinker.

He gave Donghyuck his jacket to wear for the rest of the night, and somehow, (probably through Renjun who had also hooked up with Jeno who had hooked up with Jaemin who had hooked up with Mark and was, coincidentally, also Mark’s roommate) he’d gotten Mark’s number, returned the jacket, weaseled his way into the BFF spot in Mark’s heart, and hadn’t budged since.

It only takes a week of living with Mark for Donghyuck to break down on, like, a personal level.

In short: he’s already halfway to Jisung and Jaemin’s disaster zone of an apartment before he even realizes where he’s going and has the foresight to call and make sure they’re home.

They’re not, but Jaemin takes one look at Donghyuck’s red-rimmed eyes and tells Jisung to have fun clubbing without him. Then he kicks off his scary, man-murdering, platform, patent-leather docs that everyone pitched in to get him for Christmas, and pulls Donghyuck’s head into his lap.

The thing is, Na Jaemin is the type of person who still wears doc martens even though it’s Law School now, and even Donghyuck forces himself into ugly, boring, solid color button-downs and natural makeup these days, (and there’s also the whole pink hair thing but well--Donghyuck is pretty sure that’s just a personality trait now and everyone has learned to live with it well enough) and he’s the best fucking friend Donghyuck could ever ask for.

(Besides Mark, of course, but Donghyuck doesn’t even know where they stand at the moment, given they sleep in the same bed and the fact that he overheard Mark moaning his name when he was masturbating in the shower this morning, but such is life.)

So, when he asks, “What do you know about Kim Yerim?” with an obvious agenda, Jaemin bites.

“Lesbian. Next.”

“Why is she trying her fucking best to get into Mark-hyung’s pants, then?” He huffs, slumping back down on the disgusting couch. It was a relic from their old apartment, and he’s seen too many bodily fluids exchanged on it over the years for it to be safe to sit on, but Jaemin and Jisung didn’t seem to care. Nasty knows nasty, as the laws of nature go.

Jaemin laughs, handing him a bottle of strawberry soju because he’s both the angel and the devil on Donghyuck’s shoulder, and he knows he’s too pussy to drink it plain, and says, wryly: “Are you sure about that?”

He’s not. But he’s also too stubborn to admit it and Jaemin knows that. They both know where this conversation is going because every Mark-related conversation Donghyuck has had with someone for the last four years has gone exactly the same way. A lot of yelling and demanding and drafting confessions, but it never goes anywhere, not really.

For four years, Mark Lee has held Donghyuck’s beating heart in his hands, bleeding and warm and all sorts of other terrible things, and Donghyuck, is, in fact, a little afraid of what would happen if he handed it back.

(He knows what would happen, and so does Jaemin, and Mark, for that matter. So it’s a moot point, and, like the night always ends, they spend the rest of it watching whatever drama Jaemin is hooked on that week in dead silence until they both pass out and get woken up by Jisung tripping over Donghyuck’s platform checkered Vans with a surprised yelp.)

He leaves at midnight after Jaemin physically manhandles Jisung into his lap and tries to get his boyfriend’s long limbs to cooperate in a weird, baby-rocking sort of motion, cooing about bandaids and bathtubs and other nonsense that he has no desire to witness come to fruition.

Walking home alone to find Mark passed out on their couch in one of their cohabited college hoodies and the fuzzy Christmas socks Donghyuck had gotten him three years ago, he thinks, maybe, he might actually understand Jaemin’s disgusting overprotectiveness.

But it’s past midnight and he’s still a little bit tipsy and he doesn’t really feel like agonizing over every fucking decision he makes because he’s already in law school and that’s basically enough decision-making for the rest of his life, probably. So he whispers _fuck it_ to nobody in particular, and drags the heavy comforter off their bed and shoves himself into Mark’s arms without a second thought.

Some things, apparently, when he’s got his strawberry-soju goggles on and the usual 3 AM filter of lovesickness, can be dealt with in the morning.

(They don’t deal with it in the morning because Mark gets up an hour before him and carries him to their bed and leaves a sticky note with an endearingly-deformed smiley face drawn on it on his favorite mug, full of coffee exactly how he likes it, and when he gets home that night Mark pulls him into a tight, emotionally-charged hug, and they don’t say anything at all.)

Their first real law school party (which is different than a banquet or a function in sobriety level and how flamboyant Donghyuck is allowed to act (he usually has to wear a suit and pretend to be straight and, against all odds, eventually becomes Kim Yerim’s regular date)) is either a disaster or a success, depending on where one woke up the next morning.

It’s a _You Survived the First Month_ bash, courtesy of Koeun and Herin’s combined trust funds, and Jeno taking one for the team and sucking 3L Dong Sicheng’s (their-long-suffering-even-though-it’s-literally-only-been-a-month next-door neighbor) dick to not file any noise complaints.

Donghyuck’s contribution is getting Mark out of the house and the three grams he does Renjun’s dishes for an entire week for, even though they both know Renjun was gonna bring it anyway. (Hey, at least the cherry printed rolling papers he’d raided his and Mark’s stash for were cute.)

At first, he had clung to Mark, forcing the older to make the rounds with him, as it was always a difficult task to round up their friend group, but he had lost him when he tried to drag Mark to the dance floor and he’d refused, not even budging when Donghyuck had tried to pout.

“Such a drama queen, our Duckie,” Mark had grinned, tipsy and sincere and all sorts of other things that Donghyuck finds unbearable in the universal gay conundrum of falling in love with one’s best friend kind of way.

Perhaps he needed to find a new roommate.

After leaving Mark to whatever it is he does at parties (nothing good), it feels good to let loose, to dance and drink like he’s still in his sophomore hoe phase. (A sexual meltdown, if you will.)

(Actually: an awful period in all of their lives in which he had accumulated a truly offensive collection of flavored lubes and colored condoms, and is still haunted by in the form of the nudes that pop up in Snapchat memories without fail (it’s a miracle any of them hadn’t killed him, he can’t even imagine the nightmare it was for the four of them to live with him back then.))

It's cathartic, really, even if the music is kind of shitty. (Probably because Yukhei, as usual, flirted his way to the aux cord. He always goes too heavy on the EDM this early in the night, and never truly learns his lesson about it.)

He’s got a pleasant buzz going, and should definitely lay off the weed, if his hazy vision when he finally stumbles out of the living-room dance floor is anything to go by, when he runs into Mark. It’s sometime past midnight, but before Koeun kicks everyone out because she found Herin hooking up with a 2L who wasn’t invited, and he doesn’t exactly run into Mark. It’s more like a one-sided game of hide-and-seek where he loses no matter what the outcome. (And he really should be used to it after all these years. Looking for Mark at a party is always sort of a gamble.)

Donghyuck finds him curled up in a bathtub, of all places, working through a box of mango juul pods with Yukhei’s hand down his pants. Now, Donghyuck doesn’t think it’s fair to judge when people hook up with Yukhei because it’s not like they all haven’t given Yukhei the old college try before, but it still hurts.

Maybe talking about his ever-growing heart-boner for Mark with anyone and everyone who will listen (and some who won’t, like earlier when he’d been half throwing it back, half talking Kunhang’s ear off about breaking their lease and the exchange student had literally shoved his fingers in Donghyuck’s mouth to shut him up) has made him more sensitive, or he’s just getting weak and tender in his old age, but something about Mark getting a quick handy with Donghyuck’s own sailor moon sticker-covered juul hanging out of his mouth really puts it all into perspective.

He musters out a weak “Oh shit, sorry, had to pee,” when they finally notice him awkwardly hanging in the doorway, and he sort of hears Yukhei’s garbled invitation to join them as he’s rushing out, but he’ll blame it on the vodka in the morning.

 _Maybe_ , he thinks, when they’re being herded out like dogs because Koeun and Herin are finally gonna work their shit out and refuse to have an audience, and he’s cold and alone on the sidewalk outside of their apartment trying to get an uber in Hongdae at 3 AM, _this is just how things are meant to be_.

Mark stares at him, confused. “But Duckie,” he pauses, as if trying to figure out how to possibly conceptualize the fact that Yukhei is the sexual equivalent of public camping grounds, in their friend group, “hasn’t, like, everyone fucked Yukhei?”

It’s really just too early in the morning after that nightmare of a party to be having this conversation.

(He’d woken up on Renjun’s couch, actually, a neon green bucket on the floor by his head, and the beautiful, greasy smell of Renjun’s cure-all hangover stir-fry sizzling in the kitchen, with no idea how he’d gotten there. Renjun gave him half a plate and two cups of green tea before focusing his classic _y’all-still-haven’t-talked-about-your-shit?_ glare at Donghyuck until he caved and told him about the party. Renjun had sent him home with the last of the stir-fry and words of encouragement and a lot of pitying looks, and here he was, now.)

“Yeah,” he responds, finally, ignoring Mark’s cute little worried frown because he’s pretty sure if he said _I’ve been in love with you for four years and I want to lovingly suck your dick, like, all the time_ it might actually break him.

So he stays quiet and makes them fluffy pancakes that he saw on the Tastemade Instagram and tries not to cry when Mark grins at him with a cute chocolate milk mustache and asks if he wants to hear the new song he wrote with Chenle the other day.

“Obviously,” he grins, hoping it’s enough.

His chest aches.

Their apartment is an ugly, cramped, weird little one-room affair featuring their beautiful, uncompromising, queen-sized bed in the dead center because Donghyuck likes the light from all directions and Mark is the least sensible person on the planet when it comes to interior design.

(The whole one-bed thing is a sensitive issue that boils down to basically no one in their right mind would sleep on the mattress that survived Donghyuck’s hoe phase and he couldn’t afford to replace it and they were both kind of high when they went apartment hunting and this is what they ended up with.)

The kitchen and the bathroom are no longer separate rooms after an accident involving a spider and a golf club that neither of them likes to think about. Donghyuck had taken borderline-sadistic pleasure in purchasing a set of metallic-rainbow party streamers to duct tape to the doorway between the two areas like he’d always wanted in his room as a kid.

Donghyuck had moved in first, after Mark had sprung his summer internship on him, but their original plan had been to spend the summer in their own apartment, _together._

Instead, three days before orientation week, Mark Lee had burst back into Donghyuck’s three-month marathon of yearning about Mark, eating lucky charms on their bed in his boxers, listening to ungodly amounts of Mitski/Fiona Apple/Orville Peck/Frank Ocean/Hozier/etc., and jerking off in the shower without worrying about noises. He came with a tan (stupid fucking Busan law firms with their stupid fucking beaches) and four boxes of books and a single, overflowing, bright pink duffle of nerdy clothes.

Mark had looked really good. Like, really really good. And he was fresh out of a summer fling with some other intern, (Yangyang or something. Donghyuck hadn’t really been listening, seeing as he was too busy staring at the tan lines on the back and sides of Mark’s neck from his recent haircut) meaning he’d been in his usual post-breakup clingy mood and had squished Donghyuck into a tight cuddle as soon as they’d collapsed in bed that night. And Donghyuck had let him. And, okay, maybe he does hate himself. Who knows? The last three weeks of his life are sufficient evidence, probably.

(That night, though, Donghyuck had told himself it was just Mark’s unfortunate moon in Aries and let himself burrow deeper in his arms.)

Moving Mark in had taken an entire week because they kept getting distracted (“Hyung,” Donghyuck had said incredulously, pointing to the book he’d just unpacked and was attempting, against all laws of physics, to shove into their overflowing bookcase, “why in the fuck would you take _A_ _nimal Law_?!” Mark had shrugged, pushing his glasses up his nose (completely unfairly because he has personally witnessed Donghyuck nearly choke and die when he did that once) and said, loftily, like he really had money to blow on extra courses when Donghyuck had paid both halves of the rent last month “It’s an elective.”) but eventually, they managed.

Donghyuck has learned to love their little apartment, (mostly the result of a whole summer spent staring at the ugly fluorescent green stars stuck to the ceiling in the shape of the astrological signs (yes. The signs.) during his brief, lonely venture into astronomy that had mostly just left him crying on the couch over Mark’s Venus in Virgo. Or the week where, to Jaemin’s annoying amusement, he had spent going through an inevitable and intense and predictably annoying tarot phase, during which he cried on the couch after drawing a three of swords when reading Mark’s love fortune.

Renjun had done his best to steer Donghyuck away from a witchcraft phase, after that, but it’s really only a matter of time.) but it was still too small and too cramped and too cluttered for two people doing their very best to act like nothing’s wrong. Or changed. Or. Whatever.

Meaning they settle into the awkwardest week of Donghyuck’s entire life.

“What have you been doing at night, then?” Jisung asks, slurping the watermelon soba noodles Jaemin had packed him for lunch (in a gross little pink paper bag with a heart-shaped note taped to it that made Jisung blush when he read it) in complete disinterest, which, is only okay because it’s not like they don’t do this whole song and dance every Thursday at 2 PM anyway.

“Don’t you like. Sleep in the same bed?”

Donghyuck groans, sipping the last of his decent-but-overpriced-because-it’s-a-university-campus lychee slush with honey boba and rainbow jelly dramatically.

“Don’t remind me! Every single night this week we’ve gone to bed on entirely opposite sides, facing opposite directions, and yet every fucking morning I wake up in his stupid death grip when my alarm is going off and I have to pee!”

Jisung hums in acknowledgment and probably judgment. “So what I’m hearing is that absolutely nothing has changed?”

“Yeah,” Donghyuck mumbles in defeat, hoping that Jisung hasn’t noticed that the hoodie he’s currently drowning in is, in fact, Mark’s. “I think I’m gonna fucking explode.”

“Gross,” Jisung says, moving on to the rice cakes Jaemin had packed him in little flower-shaped silicone holders. “Have you maybe considered, like, just fucking it out of your system?”

Yes, he has.

“No, of course not!” He splutters, nearly tossing his drink at the (thankfully vacant) table behind him. “Jisung, I’m like, fully in love with him, okay? In what way would a one night stand fix that? We literally live together!” Jisung shrugs, preoccupied with a meme Chenle had sent to the group chat, but he finally looks up when Donghyuck sighs in romantic despair for the fourth time in one minute.

“Look, Hyung,” he says, eyes wide and round and almost kind of cute, the way they always get when he’s trying to be serious. “I don’t see why you don’t just confess to him? I mean, I know you don’t think he’s into you or whatever but it’s not like Mark-hyung’s a complete asshole either, you know. He wouldn’t make it weird or anything. And besides, haven’t you kept this from him for too long already? If you’re really best friends no matter what, it should be a relief to get your feelings out in the open regardless of his response.”

He takes a deep breath (because, even after he’d opened up more over the years and was totally comfortable with all of them, not just Jaemin and Chenle, that was still a lot of talking for Jisung to do at once.) “Or, like, invest in a fucking futon, or something.”

“God, Jisungie,” Donghyuck pouts, tugging the gangly boy into a tight hug, “I know you’re right but fuck you for saying it. When did you grow up and get so wise?”

Jisung rolls his eyes and does the cute nose scrunch thing that makes Donghyuck understand, just a little bit, why Jaemin is so fucking obsessed with him.

“You’re too heavy, but I love you too. Or whatever,” he grumbles, hugging Donghyuck back just as tightly. “Anyway, it’s the same advice all of you gave me when I was trying to talk it out with Jaemin-hyung. Just thought I’d keep the tradition going.”

Now that was a time, Donghyuck recalls. It had been around midterms, their junior year and Jisung’s sophomore, so he wasn’t paying as much attention as he should’ve been (that might have had more to do with Mark’s girlfriend at the time, but he digresses) but he does vaguely remember a lot of awkward and sexual tension that surrounded them for weeks until they’d all forced them to get their shit together.

(AKA: locked them in the Hello Kitty themed noraebang they’d all pitched in for to celebrate the end of exams, with instructions to either fuck or fight it out (to this day they’re still not sure which it was, just that it cost an extra 50,000 won in property damage, and they were permanently banned from ever singing there again)).

“Ugh, our minds,” he sighs, and Jisung pats his shoulder in a rare display of compassion. Donghyuck savors it.

“You’ll figure it out, Hyung,” he mumbles, slurping an ungodly amount of noodles in one bite. “You two will always work out.”

The thing is, lately, it certainly hasn’t felt that way.

Donghyuck isn’t a big fan of going to Renjun for advice because he’s a human being with feelings and Renjun doesn’t necessarily deal well with either of those things. Also, he still lives in the old apartment that they’d shared with Jaemin, Jeno, and Mark, and being there, or, like, anywhere near it gives him anxiety.

Even though nostalgia hits him like a truck every time he inevitably wakes up hungover on the couch, he doesn’t really miss their apartment. Yeah, it was fun living with four of his best friends in the entire world but also. . . .he learned a lot about them that he really just never wanted to know. (But they threw great parties, of course.)

Jeno had spent most of his time pretending to be over his lifelong crush on Jaemin, Jaemin had politely ignored him in favor of sleeping his way through the majority of their Enviro-Poli class, Renjun had spent most of his time attempting to fool them into believing that he wasn’t a drug dealer, and Donghyuck had tried not to sleep with Mark. (Mark had done a little bit of all of those things too, with more of an emphasis on studying, but that was just the Mark thing to do, really.)

And yet, here he is.

Renjun sends him a curious look over his cup of tea but makes no move to speak. Great. Of course, Renjun is making him start the conversation as if this wasn’t painful enough already.

(They both know what he’s here to talk about. There are only two things that Donghyuck talks about, and Renjun certainly isn’t about to entertain his notions of legalizing gay marriage in Korea over tea on a Sunday afternoon.)

“So,” he says, staring aimlessly at the dent in the wall behind the kitchen sink that one of Jeno’s ex-boyfriends had made after finding out that Jeno had slept with each and every one of his roommates on multiple occasions. “I think I need to break up with Mark-hyung.”

Renjun blinks slowly, and takes another sip of his tea. “Okay,” he says, finally, standing up. “Let me get Gigi. You’re clearly too sober for this.”

He disappears into what used to be Jeno’s room, and comes back with the ugliest bong Donghyuck has ever seen in his entire life.

Suddenly, he remembers why he always ends up coming to Renjun for advice.

All Donghyuck wants is to be wanted, needed, and hand-fed grapes for the rest of his life.

“Open,” Mark says absently, not looking up from his notes.

They’re crammed at the kitchen table they found on the street for five dollars and decided to paint bright orange for absolutely no reason, hunched over textbooks although no actual work has been done since they sat down.

And Mark is feeding him grapes.

It’s almost painfully difficult for Donghyuck to not stare at Mark’s exposed collar bones. He’s wearing Yukhei’s shirt from the other night, and it’s so big on him that he has to keep pulling the left shoulder up every few minutes. Donghyuck can’t even find it in himself to be jealous about it, anymore.

(The shirt looks really good on Mark. Like, really, really good. He thinks he should probably still have it in him to feel shame about getting hot under the collar thinking about Yukhei fucking Mark, but they’re all a little far gone for that, apparently.)

And, well. Renjun had sent him home pleasantly high, full of promises of declarations of love that ended the moment he had stepped through their front door to find Mark lounging on their bed, one of his vast collection of Tyler the Creator vinyls playing on the record player (like there always is when Mark has something to prove) that was a housewarming gift from Donghyuck’s brother, and Donghyuck is a weak, weak man.

He sees a pretty boy on his bed and he’s done for.

So now they’re here, because Mark had climbed off their bed with a tentative smile on his face and opened his arms and said “Truce?” like this is fucking _Call Me By Your Name_ or something, and what the fuck was Donghyuck supposed to do? Say no?

A cluttered table and assignments that are due at midnight, and Mark, honey-warm under their shitty kitchen lights, with a bowl of grapes and another man’s shirt.

And it’s not exactly how he pictured the rest of his life going, but if Donghyuck can just keep this, this, _neon glow_ , this _natural disaster_ of a man. Maybe that’s enough.

This is it, for him. Mark is it for him and the sooner he can make peace with the fact that that doesn’t go both ways, well. The better, in fact.

Law school, he thinks, later that night when he’s trying to come up with a suitable excuse to tell his mom why he can’t invite Mark over for _Chuseok_ again, even though it’s practically tradition at this point, is not going as planned.

Donghyuck had dreams for this. And, yeah, he’s not being reckless enough to jeopardize his education, (yet) but it’s not like he’s spent any significant amount of time thus far not thinking about Mark. He’s got bigger issues to think about, like if he should start buying paper towels in bulk (because Mark is always spilling things and neither of them is particularly gifted in the art of laundry) or if they should have a movie night sometime next week to celebrate the A Mark got on his first big paper--and.

Well. Maybe he doesn’t have priorities that don’t involve Mark. He feels a bit dumbfounded by that, at the moment, but it’s really nothing new. He’d spent most of college paying more attention to Mark than his degree, and apparently Law School was no exception to that.

It doesn’t matter, anyway. Donghyuck loses all remaining brain cells the moment Mark joins him in bed, wrapping around him like a warm, unbearably sincere snake.

It’s so soft and lovely and Donghyuck is pretty sure he finally manages to unclench his jaw for the first time since he’d picked Mark up from Incheon in August, but Mark is still wearing Yukhei’s shirt from the Night That Must Not Be Spoken Of, so.

He pleads the fifth on what happens next.

“Duckie?” Mark hollers from the entrance of their apartment, key fighting with the rusty lock. “You better not be summoning anything you can’t get rid of.”

“Fuck,” Donghyuck curses, rolling off a dazed, half-naked Jeno and, subsequently, off the bed, with a dull thud.

“Oh, hi Mark-hyung,” Jeno greets his roommate sheepishly. “We were just. Um. Studying.”

Mark surveys the scene around them, Jeno with four of his buttons undone, a nasty case of sex hair, (Donghyuck has bad habits, okay, and Jeno is always too indulgent of anyone who will push him around a little) and a bright red hickey on his collarbone.

Then he focuses on Donghyuck’s cheeks, almost as red as his hair in high school, pants partially undone, lips swollen, and a tense, painful-looking frown settles on his face that Donghyuck is itching to smooth out with, like, kisses, or something equally as disgusting and sappy.

The room is dead silent as Jeno awkwardly fumbles with his button-up, not even bothering to tie his shoelaces as he jogs out the door, and Mark steadily avoids Donghyuck’s desperate attempt at making eye contact.

There are no books in sight.

Donghyuck never plays fair, but he remembers it being a lot more fun than whatever this is.

Well. That didn’t pan out the way he thought it would.

“How,” Renjun is scolding him but he’s not really listening, too busy thinking about the way Mark looked when he’d packed a bag and said he was crashing on Yukhei’s (and Dejun’s. . . .poor Dejun. . . .) couch for a little bit. The fire that had ignited in Donghyuck’s chest the first time Mark ever turned down his invitation to hang out in favor of a date (three years ago give or take a few. Donghyuck’s always known how to hold a good grudge) burns a little hotter, feels a little more like lava dripping down his insides.

At some point, Renjun had finished his question, but Donghyuck hadn’t retained any of it. Go figure.

In front of them, Jaemin paces.

He still doesn’t have it in him to respond to Renjun’s question, but there must be a look on his face, something entirely new and pathetic, because Renjun (who is soft for maybe two people in this entire world and neither of them are Donghyuck) starts to coo soft reassurances into his hair while he pets Donghyuck like a cat.

Awkwardly, in the doorway, Chenle lingers.

 _He looks a little bit high_ , is what Donghyuck had thought when Renjun’s boyfriend had stuck his head out of the room that used to be Jeno’s, staring at their teary, clown-adjacent procession down the hallway to the living room. And then: _that must be nice_.

He hadn’t had any Chenle-shaped thoughts since then, but, hey, the night was still young.

“You,” Jaemin says suddenly, startling all three of them. “Need to fix this.” His glare is sharp and it should contrast with his fresh bubblegum pink root touch-up of two days ago, but it doesn’t.

Jaemin, a man of multitudes. Donghyuck wonders what that might feel like.

Jaemin is right, of course, like he always is. Like their Torts professor says he is. Like history has always proven to be true, but Donghyuck sinks even further into the couch, all the same.

He’s not particularly ready for the good cop bad cop performance that is about to commence, like it always does when Renjun and Jaemin argue about his love life, but at least he has Chenle there as an ally. Even standing back as he is with his trust fund and his emotionally fulfilling relationship and his ability to not get involved.

Donghyuck envies him and thinks about maybe kicking him out right now, even if he does pay the majority of the rent, but the younger boy seems to read the room and disappears into the gross hotbox cave they converted Jeno’s old room into without a trace.

On either side of him, Jaemin and Renjun exchange concerned looks.

“Hyuckie,” Jaemin says, finally. The flames in Donghyuck’s sternum threaten to make their way up to his throat. Jaemin’s voice is soft and non-threatening, the way it is when he’s flirting with girls, and Donghyuck thinks he might be sick. “You guys really need to talk.”

“Woah there, _pardner_ ,” Chenle says, in his worst attempt at a cowboy accent because he’s a truly terrible person who wants Donghyuck to die, “that was, like, a lot of fucking baggage. You wanna unpack that?”

“No,” he mutters, letting his head bang on the sticky drinks table. “Throw the whole suitcase away.”

He didn’t mean for this whole talking about Mark to anyone, whether or not they listen or care, business to become a thing, but here they are. Yukhei and Dejun’s dungeon of an apartment. Four shots in. He’s gone through three sets of friends already, too, although that’s a less surprising outcome of the night.

(He’s shocked Chenle’s lasted this long, given that they’re not that close and Chenle, in general, does not really tolerate Donghyuck’s dramatics all that well, (they tend to overpower his own) but he suspects there was rock-paper-scissors involved.)

He’s debating on if another shot is worth having to deal with himself drunk and alone at home later, when Chenle snaps in his face to get his attention. “Hyung, why don’t you just talk to him? He’s been looking just as pathetic as you have all night!”

Donghyuck is beginning to sense that Chenle has reached the limitations of his patience for babysitting duty for the night.

He doesn’t blame him. Instead of responding, Donghyuck nods his head over to the dance floor, where Mark is practically suction cupped to Jeno’s neck, and sighs, tilting back the rest of his drink (number five? Does it matter? He’s the only one who’s gonna clean himself up off the floor, it’s fine) in one go.

Chenle doesn’t care enough to look sheepish, which is fine, and Donghyuck is going to choose to not hold that against him either, because he _is_ still giving up part of his night to life-coach Donghyuck, or whatever it is Jaemin assigned his friends fucking _hourly shifts_ to do.

And magically, Chenle’s prayers seem to be granted, because he doesn’t quite know what happens, but suddenly, Yukhei is grabbing him by the hand and giving him a cup full of one of his famously hangover-inducing concoctions and dragging him out to the dance floor for an undetermined amount of time, but eventually, Donghyuck finds himself locked in the bathroom.

The thing about dancing with a drunk Yukhei, is eventually you have to tap out. Whether it’s because your ass won’t quit, or his, is an ever-changing study in human nature.

And really, Donghyuck has listened to too many _slow dancing in the dark in the bathroom at a party_ youtube mixes to not instantly recognize the heavy feeling in his chest when the bass drops so heavily it makes the mirror above the sink rattle against the wall, that it has an almost calming effect on him.

He’s not particularly fond of staring at his haggard drunken eyebags in the mirror at 2 AM when he’d rather be in Mark’s arms or grinding on Mark’s dick or feeding Mark insanely augmented instant ramen because he’s a fucking simp, but this is how the cookie crumbled.

This whole bathroom crisis is starting to feel like deja vu from three weeks ago when he’d stared into their steamy bathroom mirror and contemplated his life choices, except at least then he’d been, like, clean. The Donghyuck of right now is pretty sure he smells like gin and Redbull and whatever monstrosity Yukhei had given him, not the comforting clouds of Mark’s watermelon body wash.

God, he misses Mark. But he’s getting over it! He thinks. Maybe. He is not nearly drunk enough for this breakdown.

And then, because his life is a fucking Netflix Original Movie, Mark stumbles through the door looking out of breath, and pretty, and a lot of other adjectives that Donghyuck thinks he’s should probably keep to himself.

Mark, to his credit, doesn’t look any less debauched than Donghyuck feels, which definitely helps.

And he says “ _Duckie_ ,” in a rush, like a prayer or a promise or maybe a confession.

And that’s all it takes, really.

 _This is it_ , he thinks, launching himself at Mark making the taller boy stumble back until his back hits the door.

“Let’s go home,” Mark whispers against his neck.

It vaguely registers in Donghyuck’s mind that they’re both too drunk for this, which is neither here nor there. He really can’t bring himself to care when Mark is _everywhere_ on him, hands in his hair, and teeth biting, scraping, anywhere he can find room on Donghyuck’s neck.

He is pressed into the door of their apartment and Mark is everything he’s ever wanted and this is mutually assured destruction and they will give and take and take full advantage because, in the end, they are always on this side of too similar.

Because Donghyuck knows that Mark knows this is the end of it for him, that Donghyuck cannot fall any further, any deeper, that they will come out of this alive and together or not at all.

That Mark is holding his heart in one hand, and Donghyuck is holding his, and their empty ones are clasped tight-as-death together as they fall into bed.

 _(Mark looks good between my legs,_ Donghyuck thinks, and then, _I would do anything to keep him here forever._

He thinks _maybe when I wake up this will have been worth it.)_

Mark’s laughter is what wakes him up. Well, the vibrations of it, anyway, because apparently he’d spent the night with his head pillowed on Mark’s chest.

His headache isn’t bad as it could’ve been, (probably because after they’d, uh, _finished_ , Mark had forced them both to rehydrate) and thankfully, the brightness on his phone is turned down enough that the Bon Appetit video he’s watching doesn’t assault Donghyuck’s eyes when he finally decides to sleepily blink them open.

Mark doesn’t notice at first, too absorbed in whatever nonsense Brad Leone is spitting at his cameraman, so Donghyuck takes the opportunity to admire his sex hair and, frankly, impressive collection of hickies trailing. . . .just about everywhere, really.

(He’s sure his own neck and torso match. They are both, evidently, biters, as they’d quickly found out on the Lyft home. Their driver had practically kicked them out when they got to their apartment complex. He’s sure their rating will suffer the consequences but neither of them had it in them to care in the moment.)

He’s caught, finally, when Brad is harassing another one of his coworkers and he accidentally laughs, pulling a soft gasp from Mark, who ruffles his hair and mutters “Ugh, I knew you weren’t asleep, brat.”

Donghyuck can’t help but smile, finally pulling himself up so that he and Mark sit shoulder to shoulder against the headboard.

Tentatively, Mark takes his hand.

“Duckie,” He starts, and then pauses, looking more nervous than he was when they opened their law school decision packets together last February. His eyes are wide and sparkly behind his glasses, and Donghyuck has never been particularly good at denying himself what he wants. “Are we. . . .okay?”

The sensation of Mark’s thumbs, calloused from years of Donghyuck forcing him to learn whatever song he was currently obsessed with on the guitar, brushing soothing circles on his palm is more overwhelming than it probably should be, but Donghyuck has waited nearly four years for this moment, and he’s not about to let it pass because holding Mark’s hand has him tearing up.

“I,” he says, praying desperately that his voice won’t crack with emotion, and Mark squeezes his hand even tighter, “have been in love with you since the day we met, I think.”

There’s a moment of silence where he wonders if he’s gonna have to come up with an excuse for his parents on how they lost the fucking deposit, before Mark finally puts them both out of their misery and lets out a loud sigh of relief.

“Thank god,” he mumbles, pulling Donghyuck into his lap, and pressing their foreheads together and it’s so nice, just to be there, together. To be held by the only person in the world he’s ever wanted like this. “I have loved you as long as I have known you, Donghyuck-ah.”

It’s like a shock to his system, hearing Mark say his real name like that, and Mark takes full advantage of that, by pressing a soft kiss to his forehead and then the bridge of his nose, lips trailing down until they reach Donghyuck’s mouth. And it’s a little gross, really, because neither of them has even brushed their teeth yet, but Mark is slowly pulling away and smiling up at him and he’s a little bit hard and Donghyuck thinks, _these are not wedding vows, but they might as well be._

(And later, when they’re both flushed and panting and Donghyuck is sort of wondering how he’s gonna break the news to his mom, who convinced herself they were dating the first time she ever saw them together, Mark, without warning, rolls off the bed, stumbles over to their record player, and frantically shuffles through their vinyl collection until he triumphantly holds up _Pure Heroine_.

“This,” he says, fiddling with the needle as the record player whirs to life, wearing nothing but his boxers and the fifty or so marks Donghyuck had left scattered all over his body, “is a _Ribs by Lorde_ moment.”)

Donghyuck watches in drunken horror, as Jisung casually sidles up to his boyfriend, and exchanges the lollipop in his mouth for the Juul in Jaemin’s, winking as he lets Chenle tug him back to the dance floor.

“Well. That wasn’t something I needed to witness right now. I see you guys are still as nasty as ever.”

“Don’t be jealous, Hyuckie,” Jaemin taunts, eyes never leaving his boyfriend’s dancing form as he sucks the strawberry lollipop enthusiastically. “You’ll get wrinkles.”

“Oh fuck you!”

This party was not exactly what he’d had in mind when he gave Jaemin permission to have a ‘small get-together’ to celebrate him and Mark finally realizing that they, in fact, had already been dating. (Minus the monogamy part, obviously, but that in itself was a flexible aspect they were both still trying to sort out their feelings about. Relationships take work, or so everyone keeps telling him.)

Unfortunately, as everything that gets left up to Jaemin to plan, it had predictably gotten out of hand.

The speakers are definitely blown out, a direct result of Renjun indulging Chenle’s Kacey Musgraves obsession and blasting most of her album Pageant Material and forcing whoever was on the makeshift living room dance floor to square dance with him, but Donghyuck honestly couldn’t care less.

He was content as he was, tucked into Mark’s side, swaying lazily with him as they shared a bottle of soju, watching Jeno stumble through yet another lame pick-up line to Yukhei’s kind amusement.

Jaemin’s latest project was to find someone to tie Jeno down. Although none of them lived together anymore and therefore didn’t have to endure Jeno’s rotating collection of one night stands, they all wanted to see Jeno happy. Jaemin, competitive by nature, and, perhaps, a bit stuck in the past, had started a betting pool.

So far, unsuccessful, although Renjun and Chenle really have been eyeing Jeno with unbridled interest, lately, which is an intriguing and infuriating outcome they hadn’t anticipated when placing their original bets on ‘who’s gonna make Jeno realize he can’t fuck his way through the rest of law school without falling in love?’ (named by Jaemin with mostly-good intentions). Donghyuck makes a mental note to add that to the list of options, and hums thoughtfully.

“What’s got you all happy?” Mark murmurs in his ear, a bit sloppily for someone only two drinks in, but Donghyuck has always been able to drink him under the table.

“Nothing,” he smiles, tugging his boyfriend closer and enjoying the tempting, subtle heat of Mark’s hands resting around his waist.

If he can get a few more drinks in him before Mark notices and cuts himself off, they might just drop all the way down to his ass.

But for now, he closes his eyes and lets the heavy, pounding bass of whatever DEAN song is blasting from Yukhei’s ‘gettin’ it on’ playlist on Spotify, wash over him as they _sway, sway, sway._

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr !](https://glittermork.tumblr.com/)


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